Hostname: page-component-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-01T12:19:17.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflecting on place: environmental education as decolonisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2020

Simone Thornton Open the ORCID record for Simone Thornton [Opens in a new window] ,
Mary Graham  and
Gilbert Burgh
Simone Thornton*
Affiliation:
School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Mary Graham
Affiliation:
School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Gilbert Burgh
Affiliation:
School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We argue that to face climate change, all education, from kindergarten to tertiary, needs to be underpinned by environmental education. Moreover, as a site of reframing, education when coupled with philosophy is a possible site of influencing societal reframing in order to re-examine our relations to nature or our natural environment. However, we contend that as philosophy has been largely absent from curricula, it is vital to redress this issue. Further, the environment cannot be viewed simply as subject matter for study but, reconceptualised in the Indigenous sense as Place. Only in this way can we overcome the human-nature divide. We conclude that educators must look for what Plumwood calls ‘experiences that do not fit the dominant story’ to disrupt an important link in the chain of climate change by developing ‘traitorous identities’ able to challenge the dominant culture.

Keywords

Climate changeeco-feminismenvironmental philosophyIndigenous knowledgephilosophyplaceenvironmental education
Type
Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 239 - 249
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bozalek, V., & Zembylas, M. (2017). Diffraction or reflection? Sketching the contours of two methodologies in educational research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30, 111–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgh, G., & Thornton, S. (2017, June–July). The democratic habitat: Promoting peace education. Paper presented at the Philosophical Inquiry with Children: Family resemblances, XVIII International Council for Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) Conference, Formación del Profesorado Faculty, Cantoblanco campus, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colwell, T. (1970). The relevance of John Dewey: A review of four books on Dewey. History of Education Quarterly, 10, 113–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colwell, T. (1972). The educational significance of the ecological revolution. The Journal of Educational Thought (JET) / Revue De La Pensée Éducative, 6, 80–92.Google Scholar
Dotson, K. (2011). Tracking epistemic violence, tracking practices of silencing. Hypatia, 26, 236–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. (2013). Epistemic justice as a condition of political freedom? Synthese, 190, 1317–1332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabriel, R., & Asma, S. (2019). The emotional mind: Affective roots of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, M. (1999). Some thoughts about the philosophical underpinnings of Aboriginal worldviews. Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 3, 105–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, M. (2009). Understanding human agency in terms of place: A proposed Aboriginal research methodology. PAN Philosophy Activism Nature, (6), 71–78.Google Scholar
Graham, M. (2012). Australian Aboriginal concepts of ethics. http://www.indigenoussovereigntyaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CustodialNavigator.pdfGoogle Scholar
Graham, M. (2014a). Place and spirit — spirit and place. EarthSong, 2, 5–7.Google Scholar
Graham, M. (2014b) Aboriginal notions of relationality and positionalism: A reply to Weber. Global Discourse, 4, 17–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grieves, V. (2009). Aboriginal spirituality: Aboriginal philosophy/the basis of Aboriginal social and emotional wellbeing (Discussion Paper Series 9). Darwin, Australia: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M., & Rojcewicz, R. (2015). The beginning of western philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Hulme, M. (2017). A cultural history of climate change. Green Letters, 21, 114–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri & L.A. Meyer (Eds.)]. Geneva: Author.Google Scholar
Kohan, W. (2014). Childhood, education and philosophy: New ideas for an old relationship. London, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathews, F. (2010). Environmental philosophy. In Trakakis, N. & Oppy, G. (Eds.), A companion to philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne, Australia: Monash University Publishing.Google Scholar
McKinley, E., & Smith, L.T. (2019). Handbook of Indigenous education. Singapore: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muecke, S. (2011). Australian Indigenous philosophy. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 13. Article no. 2.Google Scholar
Murris, K., & Haynes, J. (2018). Literacies, literature and learning: Reading classrooms differently. Milton, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neidjie, B. (1996). Story about feeling. Broome, Australia: Magabala Books.Google Scholar
Pascoe, B. (2014). Dark emu: Black seeds: Agriculture or accident? Broome, Australia: Magabala Books.Google Scholar
Plumwood, V. (1990). Plato and the bush: Philosophy and the environment in Australia. Meanjin, 49, 524–536.Google Scholar
Plumwood, V. (1992). SealsKin. Meanjin, 51, 45–57.Google Scholar
Plumwood, V. (1993a). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plumwood, V. (1993b). The politics of reason: Towards a feminist logic. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 71, 436–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plumwood, V. (1995). Has democracy failed ecology? An ecofeminist perspective. Environmental Politics, 4, 134–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plumwood, V. (2002). The ecological crisis of reason. London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plumwood, V. (2012). Eye of the crocodile. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Rainville, H. (2001). Philosophy for children in native America: A post-colonial critique. Analytical Teaching, 21, 65–77.Google Scholar
Reynolds, H. (1987). The law of the land. New York, NY: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Rose, D.B. (2004). Reports from a wild country: Ethics for decolonisation. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, S., Rosencranz, A., & Niles, J. (2002). Climate change policy: A survey. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Shay, M., & Wickes, J. (2017). Aboriginal identity in education settings: Privileging our stories as a way of deconstructing the past and re-imagining the future. Australian Educational Researcher, 44, 107–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, L.T., Tuck, E, & Yang, K.W. (2019). Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education: Mapping the long view (pp. x–xxi). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spivak, G. (2012). Why study the past? Modern Language Quarterly, 73, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, S., & Burgh, G. (2019). Growing up with philosophy in Australia: Philosophy as cultural discourse. In Burgh, G. & Thornton, S. (Eds.), Philosophical inquiry with children: The development of an inquiring society in Australia (pp. 236–249). London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Todd, Z. (2016). An Indigenous feminist’s take on the ontological turn: ‘Ontology’ is just another word for colonialism. Journal of Historical Sociology, 29, 4–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuck (Unangaû), E., & Yang, K.W. (2019). Series editors’ introduction. In Smith, L.T., Tuck, E. & Yang, K.W. (Eds.), Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education: Mapping the long view (pp. x–xxi). New York; London: Routledge.Google Scholar
UNESCO. (2007). Philosophy, a school of freedom: Teaching philosophy and learning to philosophize: Status and prospects. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001541/154173e.pdfGoogle Scholar
Watson, I. (2014). Re-centring First Nations knowledge and places in a terra nullius space. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 10, 508–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8, 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar